Fwd: RSVP for the Rethinking Cold War Cultures in Taiwan Conference (April 19-20, UCLA)

UCLA-NTNU Taiwan Studies Initiative ConferenceRethinking Cold War Cultureand History in Taiwan

• Organized by Shu-mei Shih and Faye Qiyu Lu

• Friday–Saturday, April 19–20, 2024

• Charles E. Young Research Library Main Conference Room April 19

• Royce 314 – April 20

• Register Here

Organized by Shu-mei Shih (Irving and Jean Stone Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Comparative Literature, Asian Languages and Cultures, and Asian American Studies, UCLA) and Faye Qiyu Lu (Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA), the "Rethinking Cold War Culture and History in Taiwan" Conference is presented as part of the UCLA-NTNU Taiwan Studies Initiative, a partnership of UCLA and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) that aims to create research synergies to promote cutting-edge research in Taiwan studies.

Over the past decades between the “old” and the “new” Cold Wars, the (in)significance of Taiwan in world culture and history has often been determined by ideological assumptions that are overly simplistic. Yet not only have approaches to Taiwan studies in Taiwan experienced drastic changes (from area studies to postcolonial to settler colonial critiques), the positionality of Taiwan has also demonstrated unique potential for relational comparisons with the world. This conference examines ways of rethinking Cold War culture and history in Taiwan as well as the implications of the global Cold War culture and history for Taiwan studies from interdisciplinary and transhistorical perspectives. How do philosophical thought, literary and cultural productions, and geopolitical relations intersect when we situate Taiwan in the global Cold War? What does “being human” mean in Cold War Taiwan, taking into consideration Sinophone and transpacific entanglements? How is Cold War cultural politics negotiated in the developments of literary, cinematic, and media genres? What does the practice of rethinking Cold War culture and history in Taiwan do to better our understanding of Taiwan, China, and the world at the current moment with the formation of what may be called the Second Cold War?

Invited Speakers

• James Lin - University of Washington

• Wendy Cheng - Scripps College

• Ming-Feng Liu - National Quemoy University

• William Ng - National Taiwan Normal University

• Faye Qiyu Lu - University of California, Los Angeles

• Tsang-Long Liu - National Taiwan Normal University

• Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang - University of Missouri-Columbia

• Janet Chen - Princeton University

• Nicholas Kaldis - Binghamton University

• Michael Berry - University of California, Los Angeles

• Fang-mei Lin - National Taiwan Normal University

• Raymond Kun Xian Shen - University of California, Los Angeles

• Chih-ming Wang - Academia Sinica

• Christopher Fan - University of California, Irvine

• Erin Huang - University of Toronto

• Irmy Schweiger - Stockholm University

• Lin-Chin Tsai - National Cheng Kung University

Conference Schedule

Times given below are U.S. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).

Friday, April 19 - Charles E. Young Research Library - Main Conference Room (Room 11360)

10:00-10:30am             Opening Remarks

10:30am-12:00pm        Panel 1: Taiwan in Global Cold War

1:00-2:30pm                 Panel 2: Critical Approaches to “Chinese” Culture and Cold War Taiwan

3:00-4:30pm                 Panel 3: Cultural and Historical Memories of Cold War Taiwan

4:30-5:30pm                 Opening Night Reception

Saturday, April 20 - Royce Hall (Room 314)

9:30 am-11:00am         Panel 4: Americanism in Taiwan

11:15am-12:15pm        Panel 5: Cold War Feelings of Taiwanese America

1:45-3:15pm                 Panel 6: Critical Interventions in Cold War Studies

3:45-4:45pm                 Concluding Discussion

For the complete schedule, please visit the conference website.